I must have a very poor ability to estimate quantities by volume, because judging by the size of the shuttle versus the LEGO Men in that video it’s hard for me to believe there’s 65,000 LEGO bricks there.

I have a space shuttle of LEGO myself. If I put in some new batteries it is even able to open its payload bay doors and “deploy” a satallite 😉 It’s really cool! When I put all my LEGO into boxes to put it into the cellar, I left it behind, it looks so good 😉
I hope that, in a far future, my kids (when I have some…) will enjoy it as much as I did!

It is very annoying when people comment (while browsing the web, no less) that “people have too much time on their hands” to do interesting stuff. But it’s all okay if they’re getting paid to do it, right? Argh, I guess the jealousy is understandable though.

“Yeah, It’ll be great to go back to working 70+ hours a week to make ends meet so we won’t have time to do crazy cool stuff like this.” Well said, MarkH.

Average price for LEGO elements is about $.10, so at the top end this cost about $6500. However, lots of the more common bricks cost less, and it looks like this was made using the four of the most common colors (red, white, black and grey), so it probably cost a lot less. Still several thousand bucks, tho…

BUT, I have to say, that it bugs me a bit to see so many people kvetching about “people having too much time on their hands”. LEGO is a hobby like any other (and some would say an artistic medium as well) and like any hobby, if you are into it, it eats up a lot of time. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would consider people who spend hours at a time looking up at the stars to have “too much time on their hands”…

The standard “2×4” brick (the one you think of when you think Lego) can be had for 16 cents US. That would mean this model cost just over $10,000 US assuming they paid retail. Hopefully they worked out a deal to get parts at wholesale!

**It is very annoying when people comment (while browsing the web, no less) that “people have too much time on their hands” to do interesting stuff. But it’s all okay if they’re getting paid to do it, right?**

No. In that situation people (probably the same people) complain about what else could have been done with the cash.

Actually the expression “x has/had too much time on their hands” isn’t generally meant genuinely. It’s an acknowledgement of the vast amount of time and effort spent on something of no practical value. Almost everyone who says it actually think that’s pretty incredibly cool. And while there is a certain amount of implicit envy (i.e. “I wish *I* had that kind of time to waste”,) I use the phrase as a prop rather than a dis. I think you’ll find that a lot of other commenters did as well.

If they worked non-stop, then yes, it is. But considering that a full time job, averaging 40 hours per week, is generally 2080 hours per year, it’s also roughly the equivalent of working a full time job for 9 months. Yikes!